Villa continue to be active in the transfer market as Dean Smith looks to put the final pieces of the jigsaw together before the window closes in early October.
With Villa having moved underwhelming striker Ally Samatta on and rumours linking Anwar El Ghazi to Olympiacos, it’s clear that there is a good chance of yet more movement.
The midfield appears to be the current focal point, especially as there is some foundation in rumours that Villa might leverage John Terry’s Chelsea connection to take either Ross Barkley or Ruben Loftus-Cheek on loan.
Wylan Cyprien
Embed from Getty ImagesA sudden link to Nice midfielder Wylan Cyprien has also emerged, with online reports citing that Villa had made a €17.5m bid. However, Dean Smith stated that there was ‘nothing in Villa link‘ when queried at the pre-Fulham press conference.
The former French U-21 international has been a regular for Nice, but the Ligue 1 side are looking to offload talent to balance the books. However, it seems that the central midfielder’s chances of arriving at Villa Park are remote.
Marvellous Nakamba
A player who could well be on the move is Marvellous Nakamba.
The Zimbabwe international struggled for consistent form last term and finds himself linked with a switch to Turkish giants Galatasary or Samatta’s new club Fenerbahce.
Nakamba remains a head scratcher, who one wonders whether he could be a useful squad player for Villa across a long campaign. Despite looking out of his depth on occasion last term, he has started the season brightly against Burton and made the matchday squad for Villa’s win over Sheffield United.
NEWSLETTER
Don’t forget to SIGN UP to our 100% FREE Villa Newsletter.
A decade of Villa News to your inbox – JOIN TODAY!
Want to help even more? Please Donate
If we sell Nakamba, we must have a replacement DCM lined up to compete with Dougie L??
I honestly don’t see Nakamba being allowed to leave unless we’re planning on bringing in a like-for-like replacement. He’s clearly first choice cover for Luiz’s defensive midfield position, and I don’t think any of our other current midfielders can really cover that role anywhere near as effectively. The midfielders we’ve been linked with – Barkley, Cyprien, Loftus-Cheek etc – would all seem to be more attacking midfield players as well.
It’s been said plenty of times that we miss Hourihane’s set piece delivery when he’s not playing, but also that he often doesn’t seem to be able to influence games at Premiership level as much as we’d want.
If we assume Hourihane’s current midfield position to be the area we’re trying to reinforce – directly improving our starting eleven – then successfully signing an attacking player like Rashica or Benrahma would allow Grealish to move back into his preferred midfield position. Successfully signing another midfielder like one of the above would mean Grealish would keep playing on the left side of our attack. Either way, it’s an improvement.
Sign an attacker and El Ghazi might be free to leave; sign a midfielder and Hourihane may be on the move alongside Lansbury. But Nakamba wouldn’t seem to factor into that thinking at all.
Wyland Cyprien rumour categorically denied by the player’s camp. Seems like he’s wanting to stay in the French league.
However, quote from Dean Smith:
“There’s a number of positions, obviously Ally (Samatta) going out, you look at the forward line, but also midfield as well. We’ll see if there’s one who can fit both for us.”
One who can fit both? That would seem to confirm we’re looking at a versatile attacking midfielder…
We have to sign Benjamin a very skillful player who im sure would love to team up with smith again and scores goals the kind of player we need.,little risky but I’m sure he’ll make the grade but rashica,doesn’t seem to want to join villa 75 thousand a week must be having a giraffe